My American Idol moment

Okay, for those of you living in a cave, there is this show called “American Idol”… and this post is all about it, so if you don’t like it, skip this post.

Continuing on…

One of the final three this season, Blake Lewis, happens to come from the same city I live in – Bothell, Washington. This is a big deal around here. He is the most famous person to come out of Bothell since Patty Murray – even more famous, because hardly anyone knows or cares who she is (I’m in the “I tried to vote her out” category). This is also important because my sister-in-law Q-Bee is from Birmingham, Alabama – home of Ruben, Bo and Taylor. The story goes that she knows someone who went to school with Ruben. Anyway, not that we’re keeping score, but…

Today was the big welcome home parade and mini-concert in the heart of town, so I left the kids with my mother and took Auntie (who is not a huge fan, mostly because she has softball practice on Tuesday nights and can’t watch the show) with me to see what was going on.

What was going on was this:

We arrived a half hour before the mini concert was supposed to start at Bothell Landing, and this is what it looked like right before it began (45 minutes late). We were lucky to have the view we did. Yes, the crowd went clear across the bridge and to the other side of the Sammamish slough.

Blake himself finally arrived and was greeted by the mayor and Matt Hasselbeck of the Seattle Seahawks, who presented him with a 12th Man jersey with his name on it. Oh, and FYI, everyone – it’s judges’ choice next week for songs, and Paula has picked “Roxanne” by The Police for Blake.

He got to unveil and promote Bothell’s summer concerts at the park – which he performed at last year, evidently:

And then he sang a couple of songs he’s done on the show (not “You Give Love a Bad Name”, much to the dismay of the audience, who were chanting it for a bit), and a couple of his own original works, including a song that he says he wants to release as his first single. It had a lot of beatboxing and he used an effects machine to record and play back some of his stuff so he could sing along with it.

A fun time was had by most (lots of pushy teenagers and, even worse, pushy parents in the audience), and it was definitely one of those can’t-miss-when-it-happens-where-you-live experiences. Who knows when Bothell – heck, Washington state – will ever have an American Idol semi-finalist again?

This entry was posted on Friday, May 11th, 2007 at 7:49 pm and is filed under Media.
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